Drink chardonnay by poolsides. Devour home-made mushroom tagliatelle prepared by best friend. Eyeball Helen the Cadbury dog. Dip feet in cold and chlorine. Walk two moons and live a dream. Capture a thought, an emotion, a glance, an earring. Wander the night. Lose track of time. Talk till the witching hour. Confess, hold back, reveal, conceal.
Offer comfort to a friend. Walk blindfolded on tightropes fingers scoring the air, balancing on a knife's edge. Yes, this is a dagger you see before thee. Reach for it. Take it. Break, voice; break, heart. Accept the truth. Remember the years. Tell-- or hint at-- what no one else has ever known. Realise the similarities. Try not to judge. Drive home, pray; things will be okay for everyone.
Stay out till late. Fall asleep to the rocking of a shaking, the lullaby of a machine. Listen in on god's words. Walk out into the lightest of drizzles with Leona Lewis in your ears. Breathe, lose the tension, the disappointment, desolation. Pause enthralled by the sight of leaves slowdancing in the wind under the amber warmth of a streetlamp. Fumble for a camera. Laugh as the raindrops spin into the fury of a full-blown thunderstorm in the span of seconds, silver-needled-heavy-handed. Walk home through the storm never minding the drenching, because this-- this-- you have not felt in months.
Feed brandy-spiked chocolates to a friend. Drink lassis soapy with cinnamon. Give your dog a hankering for peanut-butter-and-nutella sandwiches. Speak with your father. Be thankful for your grandmother, and her wonderful cooking that she gets your mother to bring home for you when you miss a visit because of practice.
Take a step away and leave the madding crowd. Feel anger; resign that signature to sadness. Sit in darkness with a friend. Talk. Share a bus ride with a sister. Make peace. Recall 25 roses in a plastic bag. Laugh at her Tristram-Shandyness.
Dance like you're dying, and so we are. Feel the thrill from learning a piece of choreography, from remembering steps, from fitting a move to music. Taste disillusionment; experience regret. Know envy, awe, pride, belonging, friendship. Be glad, utterly glad, for this today that will never come again, for the yesterday that's forever past, for the tomorrow waiting to be filled with promise.
Be as glad as you can be.
I know exactly how you feel because I feel the same way. But I'll be damned before I admit to it, because I've got sand in my shoes and my eyes and I will happily go on living this lie if the fantasy can only last a little longer. But the winds are ripping it to shreds, even the blindest of the blind must see. Now I could dance, but she had left me without music. What if the converse is true?
Bait your hook with strips of flesh; blood-backed worms cut from your heart.